Still Talk to My Son: a Father’s Journey Through Loss, Faith, and Learning Live After the Death of Child

How does a father keep living when his child no longer can? On April 1, 2022, Michael Dominguez's world changed forever when his thirty-year-old son, Michael, died from a fentanyl overdose. His son had battled addiction for years. He had entered Christian drug rehabs, struggled through darkness, and was finding his way toward recovery. There was hope for a different future. Then came the loss no parent is ever prepared to face. In I Still Talk to My Son: A Father's Journey Through Loss, Faith, and Learning to Live After the Death of a Child, Michael shares the deeply personal story of what happened after his son's death-the anger, unbearable sadness, questions, memories, and love that remained when everything else seemed to have been taken away. While carrying his own grief, he also had to remain strong for his twenty-five-year-old daughter, who had lost not only her brother, but her best friend. Then an unexpected invitation began changing the course of his life. Michael's boss, Jake, invited him to church. Michael had always believed in God, but he had never considered himself religious. Yet week after week, church became a place where he felt closer to his son. Prayer became a connection. He began asking God to carry the words he could no longer say face-to-face: Tell my son I love him. Tell him I miss him. Tell him I'm thinking about him. Writing became another refuge-a place to put emotions that had nowhere else to go. Through grief, faith, fatherhood, and the painful understanding of the suffering his son had endured, Michael slowly began discovering that continuing to live did not mean leaving his son behind. His loss also transformed the way he looks at the children still beside him. Life suddenly became more precious. Time became more valuable. And being present, loving deeply, and becoming a better father and role model became more important than ever. I Still Talk to My Son is not a story about "getting over" the death of a child. It is about learning to carry that child with you. It is about addiction without judgment, grief without a timetable, faith discovered in the darkest season of life, and a father's realization that death may end a life-but it does not end love. For every mother or father who has buried a child... For every family devastated by addiction or fentanyl... For anyone who has wondered how they could possibly keep going after losing someone they love... This is a story of heartbreak. This is a story of faith. This is a story of a father who still talks to his son. Because some relationships are too powerful for death to silence.